Edward Gorey

1925 – 2000

Edward Gorey was known for writing at least 90 books, illustrating 60 others, and designing sets for stage productions, including "Dracula" on Broadway and "Amphigorey," an Off Broadway play he wrote. He won a 1978 Tony award for costume design for ''Dracula." His best-known characters included the Gashlycrumb Tinies, one woebegone child for each letter of the alphabet, from Amy, who fell down the stairs, to Zillah, who drank too much gin. His work was influenced by Ionesco and Buster Keaton, Goya and Matisse.

In the last two years he produced two books, "The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas," and "The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium."

Mr. Gorey grew up in Chicago, served in the Army, and attended Harvard University, where he roomed with the poet Frank O'Hara. He graduated in 1950, then moved to New York, working in the art department at Doubleday, where he would stay in the office at night to create his own books. His first book, "The Doubtful Guest," in 1957, won acclaim from Edmund Wilson in the New Yorker. In 1962 he established Fantod Press to publish his works.

{"type":"article","show_header_text":false,"header":"ARTICLES ABOUT EDWARD GOREY","query":"(per=\"GOREY, EDWARD\") and tom!=\"Caption\" and tom!=\"Correction\" and tom!=\"List\" and tom!=\"Paid Death Notice\" and dsk!=\"Society\"","search_query":"(persons:\"GOREY, EDWARD\") AND -type_of_material:\"Caption\" AND -type_of_material:\"Correction\" AND -type_of_material:\"List\" AND -type_of_material:\"Paid Death Notice\" AND -news_desk:\"Society\"","num_search_articles":"10","show_summary":true,"show_byline":true,"show_pub_date":true,"hide_thumbnails":false,"show_kicker":false,"show_title":false,"show_related_topics":true,"show_rad_links":true,"show_subtopics":true,"exclude_topics":"GOREY, EDWARD","more_on_header":"MORE ON EDWARD GOREY AND:","alternate_index_subidx":"","show_thumbnails":true}

The last home of the artist and author Edward Gorey, a 200-year-old shingled Cape Cod classic far different from his eerie Victorian landscapes, is now a museum displaying his eccentric talents. Gorey died in April 2000 after a lengthy career as...

October 14, 2001, Sunday

EVENTS In a Hurry In the beginning this revolutionary art seemed to have been painted quickly. And at an exhibition in 1874 the title of one of the works, ''Impression: Sunrise,'' by Claude Monet, gave this movement its name. Now, in association...

The somehow cheerful drawing on the curtain -- a headless man reclining comfortably on a pedestal -- that greets theatergoers at ''The Gorey Details'' sends just the right message about the performance that is about to begin. The show is a musical...

October 17, 2000, Tuesday

To the Editor: Your April 17 obituary of Edward Gorey, the artist and author, asserts that he was ''one of the most aptly named figures in American art and literature.'' But as macabre as his work frequently is, it in fact depicts not that...